For some reason, whenever I try to search for updates with Ubuntu 12.10's update manager, I always get this error: Failed to download repository information, followed by the following details:

W:Failed to fetch http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/quantal/Release.gpg Unable to connect to extras.ubuntu.com:http:

, W:Failed to fetch http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/quantal/main/i18n/Translation-en Unable to connect to extras.ubuntu.com:http:

, W:Failed to fetch http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/quantal/main/i18n/Translation-en_CA Unable to connect to extras.ubuntu.com:http:

, W:Failed to fetch http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/quantal/main/source/Sources Unable to connect to extras.ubuntu.com:http:

, W:Failed to fetch http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/quantal/main/binary-amd64/Packages Unable to connect to extras.ubuntu.com:http:

, W:Failed to fetch http://extras.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/dists/quantal/main/binary-i386/Packages Unable to connect to extras.ubuntu.com:http:

, E:Some index files failed to download. They have been ignored, or old ones used instead.

Initially I thought that for whatever reason the repositories were down, so I switched from the Canada server to the main server. I still got the same error. I also tried installing some things from the ubuntu software center. Funny thing is, that worked fine and I was able to successfully download and install software from the software center, so it seems that only update manager can't access the repositories.

I have searched for and found similar cases (relating to ubuntu 12.10), but most of those cases involved ppa's, and I don't use any ppa's.

This question appears to be off-topic. The users who voted to close gave this specific reason:

"This describes a problem that can't be reproduced that seemingly went away on its own or was only relevant to a very specific period of time. It's off-topic as it's unlikely to help future readers." – bain, Luis Alvarado

2 Answers
2

I am using the GNOME desktop and was having the same problem. Here's what I did:

I went to Administration and started Software Updater.

I then clicked on Stop for it to stop updating. It went to saying I canceled updating then had a tab to the left for settings.

I clicked on Settings the screen came up.

Under Ubuntu software, I unchecked everything then checked the top three under downloadable from the Internet:

canonical supported

community maintained

proprietary drivers (I have a video card that can use these drivers)

Under other software I unchecked all

Then checked the first two canonical partners

I then closed Software Sources out and then restarted Software Updater

I waited to see if it worked and it did

I made a few adjustments before doing this but the adjustments never worked.

I went to the web page that failed to load by typing in the address in the web browser I was using. I then clicked on the links to go down through the web pages the Software Updater could not go to before I changed the settings in Software Updater.

Then back to Other Software

Once the Canonical sources worked under other Software, I added the other software sources one at a time then closed it out and run Software Updater.

If you are using a proxy, you will not be able to use the Update Manager without configuring your system appropriately.

The Ubuntu Update Manager uses the same proxy configuration as apt-get, the problem with this is that the system proxy setting does not alter the apt-get proxy setting. This must be done manually by editing sudo nano /etc/apt/apt.conf and add the relevant data. An example of a http proxy server is

Acquire::http::proxy "http://username:password@proxy:port/";

Make sure that your password does NOT contain any non-ASCII chars as this might create some problems due to the files encoding.